The present invention relates to a disk loading apparatus for a recording/reproducing apparatus using a disk-shaped recording medium (it is hereinafter called a disk) such as a compact disk (CD).
Conventional disk loading apparatuses are shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3. In the apparatuses, large-diameter disk 1, small-diameter disk 2, disk-driving roller 3, disk-pass detecting switch 4 for detecting for the end of the disk to pass over, and apparatus body 5 are illustrated. When the disk is ejected, disk-pass detecting switch 4 detects that the disk has passed. The disk then stops at a position shown in FIG. 2.
Even if each of large-diameter (12 cm) disk 1 or small-diameter (8 cm) disk 2 is used, the disk stops with a same mechanism regardless of the diameters. As shown in FIG. 2, if large-diameter disk 1 stopped and is securely held at a position where the disk can be pulled out with a user""s finger inserted into a center hole, a projecting portion of small-diameter disk 2 is so small that the center hole of small-diameter disk 2 cannot move out of apparatus body 5. Therefore, a recording area of small-diameter disk 2 is grabbed with the finger. While, as shown in FIG. 3, if the center hole of small-diameter disk 2 lies off apparatus body 5 to be pulled out, a projecting portion of large-diameter disk 1 becomes excessively so large that the disk cannot be held stably in the projecting state.
It is an object of the present invention to eject large and small disks from an apparatus body at substantially equal projecting rates using one common disk-pass detecting switch, so as to prevent a disk surface from getting soiled or damaged.
A disk loading apparatus of the present invention, in response to a size discrimination result of the used disks of different diameters, controls rotation time of a roller after the detection of the pass of each ejected disk""s last end to control the ejected amounts of the disks.